


Runaways

by mustachio



Category: Assassin's Creed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-04
Updated: 2012-09-04
Packaged: 2017-11-13 12:50:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/503714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mustachio/pseuds/mustachio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before they were Assassins, the Al-Sayf brothers were runaways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Runaways

**Author's Note:**

> Written for hc_bingo over at dreamwidth.

Malik remembers smoke. He remembers the heat of the fire as the village burned and the Templars continued to feed it with bodies of the dead, bodies he once thought of as neighbors, as friends, of those he once thought of as people. But those bodies weren’t people then. They were faceless, nameless masses of flesh, so mangled and scarred that they were beyond recognition. He remembers the burn in his legs as he ran, remembers how they threatened to give out underneath him before he could make it half way to his destination. He remembers the tears streaming down his face as he remembered his father telling him that Al-Sayfs do not runaway; Al-Sayfs stay and fight their battles with all the courage they could muster. He remembers running from those words, from the voice that played through his mind continuously, reprimanding him for running away.

He remembers the stronger, closer voices of the Templars shouting not to let him get away, to keep him from running and letting anyone know of what they were doing. He remembers the hand that grabbed him, lifted him, and laughed in his face as he closed his eyes and continued to cry and run even though there was no ground under his feet and he was getting nowhere like this. He remembers thinking that if he just kept moving his legs, if he just kept running through the air he could get away from that hand and the Templar it was attached to. He remembers kicking the Templar he’d been trying to run so hard and he remembers running even faster the moment that hand let him go and gave him the chance to continue running on land.

He remembers trying to block out the sound of his father’s voice and the sounds of the screaming from the dying people and the yelling of the Templars by focusing on the sounds of his own heavy footsteps. He remembers thinking that running would be the only way he could be safe, that if he didn’t run, there was no chance of survival. Running was the only comfort he had then and so it was what he did. He ran to find his brother, to find a hiding spot for them, and when the Templars approached them there, he ran away again. He ran and made his brother run with him even though his brother was crying that he wanted to go home, wanted to see their mother and father and sleep in his bed and not on the ground.

He remembers the nights when his dreams are plagued by his father talking about how Al-Sayfs don’t run away, how his father made him promise that he would never run away, and how he was breaking that promise now. He remembers wanting to run away from his dreams, wanting to run away from his name because if Al-Sayfs didn’t run away, then he didn’t want to have that name anymore. If being an Al-Sayf meant having to stay and fight those Templars on his own, he didn’t want to be an Al-Sayf. He wanted to be a runaway; he wanted Kadar to be a runaway because if they weren’t runaways, they would be dead.   
He remembers when they finally do go back, when they finally stop running for a little while, how he wished they had never stopped running at all. He remembers the look on Kadar’s face when he saw that everything they had once thought of as a home could now only be thought of as a wasteland. He remembers how Kadar came running to him when he nearly tripped over a body that hadn’t been burned and he remembers thinking that running was the only comfort they would ever have now. They had no parents to tell them that everything would be okay, no adult figures to take care of them. The only thing they did have was the knowledge that if they kept running, if they lived their lives as runaways instead of Al-Sayfs.

And when enough time passes and he no longer thinks of that village as his home, he remembers his father telling him that Al-Sayfs are Assassins and when Malik holds Kadar’s hand that night he thinks that one day they won’t be runaways anymore. They’ll be Al-Sayfs again and running away won’t be the only comfort they have. That day, he won’t want to run away from his memories because they hurt too much or from his brother because he doesn’t know if he can take care of them both. That day they’ll be Assassins and neither of them will be runaways because they’ll be fighters. They’ll fight against all of those things that hurt them and made them want to run and they’ll be their own comfort.


End file.
